I'm about to close on a house (built in 1990) and the inspection revealed that the pipes are polybutylene. From what I've read, there is a chance of more issues with poly b and I've heard that insuring a house with it can be more difficult, but I can't tell how much of an issue it actually is.

My house has poly-b piping, its not an issue from what I understand in Alberta. The majority of the failures occurred in the southern US where utility piping isn't as well protected from high temperatures. My home inspector said there were two documented failures in Alberta, but both were attributed to poor assembly of fittings, not material failure.

My home inspector told me that a few weeks ago, when a bank was following up on another of his inspections, whoever contacted him told him that they weren't covering poly b houses anymore, which really is what spooked me. I figured getting insurance now wouldn't be an issue, I'm just more worried about whether this is just a one-off anecdote or whether it might become increasingly common in the future.

I have a small amount of poly-B in the heating system in the garage slab and there were no issues with insurance. There is a risk of it corroding my boiler faster as it diffuses oxygen, but being in the slab is supposed to be better than open to air.

I know it's different stuff, but we did have issues with insuring our house with kiitec for the in floor heating in the basement. However, it seemed to depend on which person you talked to and one company wouldn't put it in writing that they wouldn't insure a house with it. And then one insurance company didn't even know what it was! The whole thing was quite bizarre!

I too have heard it isn't much of an issue here. The type of connections attached to it seem to be the biggest issue. While the inspection report pointed this out, what was the inspectors thoughts?

This is most likely the wrong thought, I also believe that if it were going to fail, it would have done so by now and if it hasn't, you have as good of a chance of any plumbing to fail.

He spoke as though he didn't think it would derail the purchase, and I talked to the Insurance Bureau of Canada and they hadn't heard of anything concerning insurance and poly b so I'm not really concerned anymore.